


The Ties That Bind

by petvampire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mates, Pack Feels, The Alpha Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petvampire/pseuds/petvampire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The alpha pack is in town, and they are intent on taking everything Derek Hale cares about. And they, more than others, can tell exactly what that is...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There is a haze on the edges of his vision when he comes to, a blur that doesn’t go away even when he blinks hard, shakes his head, tries to clear the view. His head rings; he’s been hit, hard. Stiles can’t actually remember it happening, but he knows the sign. The rough half-growl, half-chuckle that he hears from in front of him just reiterates the point.

It’s the alpha pack. It doesn’t take any thought, any deduction to figure that out. Stiles was clubbed on the head in the middle of the woods, and now he’s bound to a chair somewhere with someone who growls when they laugh – it’s the alpha pack. He’s not an idiot, it’s not difficult to tell.

His blurry eyes focus in on the one of his captors closest to him, the one laughing at him though in his opinion, he hasn’t done anything remotely amusing. She’s a brunette, stunning, really (but judging by Erica and the few pictures he’s seen of a pre-being-cut-in-half Laura Hale, most female werewolves are), lounging at her ease in a beat-up chair that seems to be a match to the one Stiles is in. She looks far more comfortable, but then her hands aren’t tied behind her back, her ankles not bound to the chair legs. That makes a bit of a difference.

“Finally awake? I forget how fragile you humans are,” she purrs, in a voice that puts Erica’s dangerous-slutty-tone to shame. This girl is the real thing, an alpha bitch (and Stiles means that literally) to the utmost. She sounds a little like Lydia, actually, he thinks distantly, mind meandering off to the thought and coming back slowly when she laughs again. “Don’t tell me you’re broken already. I was hoping you’d be a little more _fun_.”

Stiles manages a half-hearted glare, but it’s hard to muster up the anger he knows he should be feeling. It’s not just the head wound. Did they drug him? They must have, because he feels fuzzy, distant, and his vision won’t clear. By the widening of her smile, the flash of fangs, she knows he’s figuring it out, and she finds it just as amusing as the rest.

“Really? Your big, bad alpha pack couldn’t handle one little human without resorting to pharmaceuticals?” His voice is a little thick, but he still manages to get the words out, to infuse them with the proper amount of sarcasm. Her smile hardens. Stiles knows he shouldn’t be baiting her, that he’s already in, like, the _deepest_ of shit, but he can’t help but follow his instincts.

“Oh, I hardly think you’re _just_ one little human, Stiles. Sheriff’s son? Best friend to one werewolf, part of another’s pack? We like to take precautions, Stiles. It makes things run a lot smoother.” She leans forward in her chair, grinning again. “Besides, this just makes it so much easier.”

Stiles is still stuck on her words – he looks puzzled for a moment, then shakes his head. She looks vaguely bemused. “I’m not part of anyone’s pack. Seriously, do I look like a furball to you?”

She gives him that ‘don’t-kid-yourself’ look that he is so used to, though generally from teachers, Coach, girls (Lydia in particular) and… well, everyone, actually. “Come on, Stiles. We’ve been watching. You spend an awful lot of time around those betas, to not be thought of as one of them. And Derek Hale? Honey,” she drawls, flashing fang again and eyes flickering alpha-red, “His scent is all over you. You’re his pack, darlin’.I suggest getting over it. ”

Stiles stops, stiffens, looks at her. “I’m not his pack. I’m not his _anything.”_

She is silent for a moment, and her expression reads honestly shocked. Then she’s laughing – head thrown back, almost howling, a picture of complete abandon. She laughs until she’s breathless, until the laughter is coming in short, sharp chuckles as she tries to remember to breathe. Stiles stares, brows knitted together, lips twisted into a frown that mingles confusion and bitter anger, mostly the former at the moment.

When she speaks again, the mirth is still evident in her voice. “Oh, god. You’re joking, aren’t you? You really— “ She laughs again, and this time it catches as she looks at him, the smile widening further still. “No. You’re serious. You really think that, I can smell it on you. And – oh, _he_ does too, doesn’t he? Thinks he’s nothing to you?” She gives him a feral smile, the big bad wolf in a hot girl’s body. “No wonder he’s going to be so easy to take down, if he doesn’t even recognize his own _mate_ when they’re right in front of him.”

Once again Stiles stops, _everything_ stops. His head is spinning, his vision blurry again, and this time it has nothing to do with the wound or the drugs. Derek’s _mate_? That’s not even possible. He’s a guy, for one thing, and wolves aren’t – they don’t – natural wolves don’t, anyway, but he guesses werewolves are far from natural, but _still—_

Derek doesn’t even _like_ him. Stiles is just the annoying kid who tags along, Scott’s sidekick, the boy too stupid to stop trying to run with wolves. Being _anything_ to him, let alone his frickin’ _mate_ , is outside the realm of possibility.

While Stiles’ mind is still reeling, the alpha in front of him smirks, rising from her chair and stalking towards him, a sway of seductively dangerous motion. “Let’s find a way to send our regards to your alpha, shall we?”

Eventually, Stiles finds himself grateful for the drugs.


	2. Chapter 2

They let him go, leave him stumbling in the woods still barely able to focus enough to move. He is battered and he is bleeding, there are still tranquilizers in his system, but they are _letting him go_ , so he makes it back in the direction of the Hale house, catching onto trees here and there to keep himself on his feet. The wolves find him before he makes it all the way back. He’s pretty sure it’s Boyd who carries him the rest of the way, but it’s the vivid impression of Isaac’s worry and Erica’s terrified expression that sticks.

Distantly, he wonders when the betas started caring whether he lived or died. Considering they had once actively threatened him on Derek’s behalf, it was a long way to come.

The burnt-out shell of a house is familiar, even though this isn’t where the pack dens anymore. Somehow everything circles back around here. Fire and blood. Stiles is really very poetic when he’s had the shit knocked out of him.

Something is shaking him, and he snaps back to reality, finding Derek’s face hovering over his. Instinct has him recoiling, remembering the alpha’s words earlier (how much earlier, he can’t tell; hours at the least, days at the most, but he has lost track of time). The werewolf frowns down at him, the same angry-concerned expression he shows his betas on his face. There is more movement, and Stiles doesn’t comprehend for a moment. Then he realizes Derek is undoing the buttons of his shirt, dragging the blood-damp fabric out of the way. The tee shirt underneath was white, at one point, but now it’s a muddy red-brown. A claw shreds through it, almost delicate, and then it too is being peeled away.

The fact that the shirts were there at all is deliberate, because Stiles does remember what happened – the alpha girl preferred the canvas of bare skin, but she made some comment about not wanting him to freeze to death before they tossed him back out into the woods. Concern was obviously not the first thing on her mind, because having the fabric pulled off the wounds hurts like _hell_ , re-opening the claw marks that had started to clot and scab over.

They, too, are deliberate. She has sent a message, all right; the same sign that was on the house’s door, _their_ sign, is clawed into his skin, slightly crooked where the sharp lines are forced to curve over the soft flesh of his chest. The marks aren’t deep enough to turn him, she assured before she let him go, but they will scar. He’s pale, fragile, human. He marks easily, anyway.

And now they’ve marked him, permanently. He can’t heal like the wolves do (and he _won’t_ , because he’s more and more convinced that turning into a werewolf has a fifty percent chance of also turning you into a _complete psycho_ ). The scar will last, and maybe it will fade, but it will always be recognizable.

That was what they wanted.

Stiles passes out, but the absolutely _crushed_ look on Derek’s face is burned into the back of his retinas.


	3. Chapter 3

He heals slowly. There are always wolves in constant attendance; Scott made his way out here at some point, making his peace with Derek and his pack to make sure his friend is safe. Isaac hovers with very canine dedication, though its clear he understands more than the others what this is like, what it is to be hurt like this. Erica keeps her distance a little more, because she knows she unsettles Stiles, and because she knows from what he’s managed to tell them that the alpha who did this to him was female. She seems to take offense to this, and seems to want to be cautious just because of her gender. Stiles couldn’t care less, because now that she’s not trying to scare or impress him she couldn’t be less like the alpha, but she stays at arm’s length anyway. Boyd is as solid as always, a quiet bulwark of support, not as touchy-feely as Isaac but not as distant as Erica. Stiles has gotten used to falling asleep with at least one person pressed up next to him; if he weren’t wounded, he’s convinced they’d end up in a big pile like puppies, healing trauma and pain alike with closeness and comfort.

Derek stays away. He talks to Scott, confers with Peter, keeps an eye on his betas and Stiles, but he doesn’t say anything to him, not after he gets the initial report on what happened (once Stiles is lucid enough). He looks more dark and broody than usual, though Stiles guesses he can’t blame him for that. The message was for him, after all. That the alpha pack can take someone in his protection, hurt them, mark them, and he can’t do anything about it.

He cannot help but acutely remember the alpha’s words, that tell him this was meant as more than that. Not just someone under Derek’s protection, but someone he theoretically cares about. Someone important.

Stiles doesn’t believe for a second he’s someone important, but with the way Derek’s reacting, maybe he’s wrong.

He heals up fine, except for the scar. The other injuries are minimal – a minor concussion, a few other shallow claw marks, and what feels like more bruises than he has skin. He’s black and blue for a while, then the sickly green-brown-yellow of healing flesh. The black eye and split lip mend. His head clears.

The alpha pack’s sigil is carved into his chest, but hey. No one’s perfect.

He goes home the second he can, because he’s been checking in with his dad, buying time, but he knows the stories he’s concocted will only convince him so much. He can’t go back with the bruises, though. Even Stiles can’t explain those away, can’t convince the sheriff not to take action. What he can and does do, though, is get Scott’s mom on his side, get her to cover for him, because she knows about the wolves now, and she knows why he can’t tell him. She convinces him that Stiles has been sick, quarantined, and he looks pale and wan enough when he gets back to make the story seem true.

Lying to his dad when things are this bad hurts, but he doesn’t know what else to do. So he hides his guilt with smiles and the bottle of whiskey he lets the man ‘find’ in the cabinet, and hates himself for it more than a little.

It’s more comfortable to sleep in his own bed than on the half grown-over floor of the Hale house, but he misses the pack around him.

He wonders when it became more common for him to have company than to sleep alone.

The first time a warm body joins him on the mattress, he doesn’t really wake up. His subconscious assumes it’s Isaac, because the brunette has latched onto him like by simple persistence he can somehow make Stiles better, and he doesn’t really mind it. The warmth is gone when he wakes up, so he doesn’t question it, either, just goes about his day, the usual pretense of being a normal person. He forsakes that the second classes are finished, follows Scott to the animal clinic and spend the afternoon with Deaton, picking up as much lore as he can. He’s taken to doing that, trying to find some way to protect himself when he’s just human.

The days he’s not there, he’s got his dad’s old revolver out in an abandoned field. He knows how to shoot, has to, considering there have always been guns in his house and his dad is a cautious man. He improves, and he keeps the gun where he can get to it, not in the safe where it belongs.

Nights pass before the warmth joins him again, and this time Stiles stirs slightly, but still doesn’t wake. He moves just enough to tuck his head against the warmth of skin (and a chest that is definitely male, so that rules out Erica, not that he ever thought she was sneaking into his bed anyway) and breathe in something that smells like grass and leaves and home, and then he’s out again. He’s always slept heavy.

The third time, he’s awake.

Insomnia isn’t uncommon for Stiles. He knows sleepless nights, and he’s known more of them since the alpha pack. He does what he can to distract himself; this time, it’s reading a book Deaton lent him, eyelids drooping but not quite closed. He can’t blame anyone for thinking he’s asleep, because he sort of looks like it, every light but the little lamp above his bed out, propped up on pillows, eyes looking like they’re only half-focused.

They aren’t, and when there is a quiet thud by his window, Stiles almost jumps out of his skin. He has the gun in his hand before he can think, but it isn’t pointed. He’s grateful for that, because Derek looks like he is about to jump straight out the window to avoid being shot.

Stiles puts the revolver down. “Jesus,” he says, quietly so as not to wake his father, but with enough frantic nerves in his tone to give his words heft anyway. “Have you ever heard of knocking? Or, you know, doors? What are you even doing here, man, Twilight-creeping in on me to watch me sleep?” It’s a cruel accusation, he knows (because any comparison to that godawful series is cruel), but he doesn’t expect Derek to look as guilty, as crestfallen as he does.

It kind of makes him want to apologize. It definitely makes him want to do something, to close distance and reassure.

He swallows, then shakes his head. “Come on, then,” he says quietly, and settles back into the bed, carefully marking his page in the book and setting it aside.

Derek doesn’t say anything. He just settles in as well, the silence heavy. He doesn’t wrap himself around Stiles, doesn’t do anything unwontedly affectionate; he just curls himself against Stiles’ back, facing the opposite way, but providing that solid warmth that he’s gotten so used to.

It’s more comforting than he can possibly say. Stiles breathes in, catching the more familiar hint of leather and smoke mingled with that earth-heavy scent he’s noticed, and finally sleeps.


	4. Chapter 4

It becomes habit. Derek sneaks in through his window more often than not, and Stiles falls asleep smelling the woods at night and feeling secure. It can’t possibly last, because the alpha pack is still out there. They are taking their time, but they are far from gone.

When they strike again, Stiles has almost been expecting it. This time they go for Isaac. They took Erica and Boyd already, first, sent them home beaten with their tails between their legs. Isaac is gone for three days, and when they find him, he has so many broken bones he can’t heal them even with his werewolf powers. Derek has to re-break a lot of them to jump start the healing process, and Stiles makes himself watch, grim and hard-faced.

This is why he’s been studying, practicing. Because the alpha pack keeps hurting people just for the joy of it. Because they’re hurting Derek, and Stiles can see it. He flinches every time he has to shatter another bone, winces at Isaac’s pained whimpers. He hides it well, the shifts of expression only slight, but Stiles notices. Derek’s hurting almost more than Isaac is, and that’s why they did it.

He’s tired of it.

This time, when they get back to the den, he insists they make a plan. The whole pack is there (the pack that he knows; Jackson, new wolf that he is, is off in Aspen with his family and Lydia, and Stiles can only hope he hasn’t eaten anyone), and he outlines, in no uncertain terms, the measures they need to take. They can’t hope for the alpha pack to just get tired of toying with them an leave. They have no defense, so they need to take the offensive.

Discussion on what, exactly, that means goes late into the night, and Stiles almost doesn’t notice when Derek winds an arm around his waist, because he’s too caught up in an argument with Peter, trying to convince the older wolf that they can’t just run in without a real plan of action. For a second he thinks Derek is trying to pull him away or hold him back; when he realizes the touch is just supportive, he relaxes into it, feels no inclination to pull away or break free.

Later, he wonders when that happened. When he got comfortable with the alpha being that close; when Derek got comfortable with the kind of casual touch the rest of his pack displayed when there wasn’t an immediate crisis at hand.

He’s not sure he cares.


	5. Chapter 5

The night they take action is the dark of the moon. Stiles knows better than to run around the woods with a bunch of werewolves on a full moon; with the alphas out there, it would be an even worse idea than usual. So he insists they wait, insists on the exact opposite. It doesn’t help them much with anything, but it holds a sense of poetic justice for him.

They take a page out of the Argents’ book and set traps wherever they can. True, the alphas are probably going to be able to find them and avoid them, but that’s sort of the point. Avoiding the traps bottlenecks them into the place Stiles has designated as a strike zone, forces them into the path he wants them on. It actually works, partially to his surprise, and when they come, the pack is waiting.

It’s an uneven matchup, he knows that. There are five of the alphas: the woman; a pair of twins, one male and one female; one scrawny, shady guy who reminds him a lot of Peter; and the clear physical leader of their group, a large and imposing man who, despite being clearly into his mid-thirties or early forties, is in the prime of life, at the peak of his strength. All of them, up against three barely-trained pups, an omega only working with the pack just this once (like Scott hasn’t said that before), a one-time alpha who somehow managed to come back from the dead, and a pack leader who was never meant to rise so high. Them, and one scrawny human, holding a gun in hands that shake just slightly when he raises it to sight the leader.

He doesn’t need the gun. The circle of mountain ash he closes behind the alpha pack works better than that. He leaves them there, trading insults and curses, until they are tired of the game, tired of coping with Stiles and Derek’s pack. Until they are tired, period, tired and hungry and thirsty, enough so to drink from the stream that cuts through the circle.

The stream he poisoned with as much concentrated wolfsbane as he could get his hands on.

They are howling threats now, howling agony, and one of them manages to break the line of ash; the pack descends on them, taking advantage of their current weakness, but they are hardly out of danger. The big one, the one in charge, slaps Erica down; he goes for Derek, rips bloody furrows in him before Stiles gets there, puts himself between them.

He empties a clip of wolfsbane bullets into the alpha of the alpha pack, fear and rage in his face, hate and pain in every shot. He protects what is his. When the alpha falls, the rest of them scatter, wounded and possibly dying, but clearly not willing to come back, not willing to face this again. They are all alphas, but they are without a true leader now. Their power is broken.

Stiles can’t even care. He bends over Derek, shakes him, punches him, tries every measure he can possibly think of to get him to move, to wake, to not lie there bleeding out onto the ground. When the wolf finally stirs, Stiles practically tackles him back to the ground, arms locking tight around him. Every muscle in his body commands Derek to live, to heal, to be well.

Because he gets it now. It’s always been there – the urge to protect the pack, the draw to keep them safe. Every time he’s risked his own life, his own safety, to save Derek; every time he has put his life, his desires, on hold to face some supernatural crisis. It wasn’t for Scott. It wasn’t even for him. It’s because he needed to, because this is what he is, what he’s there for. He is important; he is something to someone.

Stiles tilts back his head to let out a pale, human howl at the nonexistent moon, and Derek laughs at him, weak but healing, and buries his face in the crook of his mate’s neck, marking him with that scent of home.


End file.
